Keeping pets safe on Fourth of July

All right, welcome back. If you are preparing for 4th of July festivities, keep in mind it can be a tough day for our four-legged friends. The cracks and the booms from 4th of July fireworks shows can be a nightmare for cats and dogs. So look who we have in studio. Joining us live, Michelle Williams, the senior manager of public relations and marketing for Canine Companions. They provide service dogs to people with disabilities and all of that. So first of all, introduce us to our guests here. Yes, well, we have adorable little puppy Scoop with you-- Scoop, yes, of course. --who you know well. And then this is Persephone, or Percy for short, and she is in professional training with us to become a service dog.

Wow. OK, so leading up to this, what should we do to protect and help our pets when we hear the booms and all of the firecrackers? Even tonight we're hearing them.

Yes, I was going to say, it doesn't just start tomorrow. It starts tonight, right? And what we suggest is that you start early in the day. So give your dog lots of exercise. Take them on walks. We also suggest giving them some mental stimulation. So right here-- oh, you can see they are excited about this-- I have a topple toy filled with frozen kibble that has been mushed up in there. So that is a really nice way to get them to a little more mental stimulation while they're eating their meal. And then we also say if you can keep them nice and active that day-- maybe do some training. Get their mind and their body stimulated so they can be, hopefully, a little tired, a little more calm that evening. Once the fireworks start. That's right. Certainly. What else can we do? I know that there's things that they can possibly wear, ThunderShirts. Yes, there is. Oh my God, look at how cute they're being. There is something called a-- Can we show that? OK, they are being cute.

They are being so cute.

They're so TV ready.

They're amazing. So there is something called the ThunderShirt which is kind of like a wearable weighted blanket, which can be very comforting to some dogs and people, right? But we also-- you can give your dog a nice cozy snuggle. But the other thing we really recommend is playing, doing some stuff with your dogs to make them a lot more comfortable when the fireworks are going off. So one thing we can do is when we hear the firework, we can pair it with a kibble. So boom, kibble. So we --are We like the boom. We like the boom. The kibble is good. We can also make sure that our dogs are cozy in their kennel. If they're kennel trained, you can see they really like their kennel. It's a nice, safe space for them to be.

Sure.

The other thing we can do is give them-- make sure that the TV's on, the radio is on so that we have some music in the background, so we're not just hearing this crazy boom every two seconds. I was just thinking, what if some folks are going to go to an event where they don't bring their pets, so their pets are left alone? Yes, we always want to recommend that if your dog is crate trained, to put them in their kennel, their crate. That is going to be the safest-feeling spot for them during that wild stuff. And then the other thing, when you mentioned fireworks shows, we really want to encourage people not to bring their dogs to firework shows. It's just a very loud, exciting environment, and it can be dangerous if a dog maybe runs off. So the other thing we recommend is before you go out for your festivities, make sure your dog has its collar on with its name and your phone number on it. Such a good point. I've done so many stories after the 4th of July, people looking for their dogs because they take off, and they need to have that identification. That's right. You want to make sure that your neighbor can just call you on the phone. Yeah Got your dog here. Come get Scoop. And then this topple is a great way. You can actually feed them their dinner in this. So maybe this happens when the fireworks happen. And you can see these girls are very excited about it. They have been really good little companions here. All right, well, thank you so much. Anything else before we scoop on out of here? Oh my gosh. I love it. Well, if you'd like to learn more and get more tips, you can go to canine.org to learn a lot more about us. I love that. Thank you so much. Happy Fourth to you. Happy Fourth. Let's keep it nice and peaceful. Thanks, guys. Aw. Thank you so much.